


The Last Night

by thequeenmeera



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2020-01-31 14:33:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18593239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thequeenmeera/pseuds/thequeenmeera
Summary: Because we didn't get to see what Bran did with his "last night" in 8x02 I got to fill that space with whatever I wanted





	The Last Night

**Author's Note:**

> I am so emotional about Tyrion actually paying attention to Bran and actively asking Bran about his experiences and my little shipper heart took the wheel

“Do you need help” Tyrion asked him.

“No.”

“You’ve had a strange journey.”

“Stranger than most,” Bran was trying his best not to think about it and already the ocean of feeling threatened to drown him again.

“I’d like to hear about it,” the small man dragged a chair towards him.

“It’s a long story.”

“If only we were trapped in a castle in the middle of winter with nowhere to go.”

******************

The half-man prodded and cajoled Bran along, always seeming to ask the right questions. He let some things slip by. Explanations mostly. Bran couldn’t bring himself to tell everything about what had happened the night they’d had to flee the cave, the night he became the Three Eyed Raven. He wasn’t sure he understood it all himself and there was something, a cavern, an ocean inside his heart he could not name but he knew to fear it. So he skirted about the edges of the tale. He did not talk about his father, about all the things he’d been forced to watch after the confusion and the settling of the Three Eyed Raven upon his mind nor did he speak of his aunt and his cousin.

Luckily Tyrion seemed more interested in Bran’s companions. It was hard at first to talk about his friends; about Rickon and Osha, Jojen and Hodor and the Children of the Forest but once he’d started talking he couldn’t stop until he’d brought them back to life with words. How he missed them. Meera, however, evaded his grasp and it was Meera Tyrion wanted to hear about the most. “Where is she now?” Tyrion asked as it was growing dark outside.

“She went home.”

“So she’s still alive?”

Bran fiddled with the pieces on the map, “Yes.”

“Why did she leave?”

“She’d been away from home for years. I got to come home, why should she have been made to stay?”

“But you want her to come back anyway.”

Bran did not answer, he didn’t dare. “I don’t want anything anymore,” he said finally.

Tyrion snorted, “I prefer not to be lied to, but I’ll leave you be.” The man had walked halfway out of the library before he turned back “Are you sure you don’t need help leaving here or doing anything else?”

“I don’t need help.”

“I’ll leave you with one piece of advice then: don’t lie to yourself. You feel things. You want things. And you love that girl. If you survive this war you should write to her and beg her forgiveness for whatever it is you did. I hope you have that chance.”

Bran glowered at the map and heard the door of the library close. Everyone else in Winterfell was doing what they could to comfort themselves that night while they waited for the dead to come. Bran kept his vigil over the map for some time, trying to think of what to do. There was no one left for him to seek comfort with; his family all had other companions as did Sam and Tyrion and who else was Bran supposed to sit with?

There was paper, ink, and quills on a table nearby. Ravens could not find Greywater Watch. He would likely be dead by the next night. _If this night ever ends_ Bran reminded himself. But if it did, if there was a way to send a raven or a message…

******************

Meera was rightfully surprised when her father handed her the scroll. The raven was weary and her father fed the bird bits of fish from his hand. “Ravens cannot find Greywater Watch,” she told him, baffled.

“This one did, a first.”

There was a direwolf sigil in the hard gray wax and Meera took the letter back to her bedchamber, to dry it she told her father. She left the thing on the small table by the window for days. She busied herself with hunting and helping to move food stores to the driest parts of the castle. Greywater’s defenses were weak at best, they had relied on the nature of the Neck to protect them in times of danger. They’d never needed to secure the battlements before and there was not much that could be done. If the castle was attacked it would fall. “We should have gone to Winterfell,” Meera told her father in private after a day of stacking bundles of dried reeds about the perimeter for the purpose of burning them if the dead came too close. But it was far too late for them to set out. The snows were too deep, the dead were coming south. If they were to go North they’d run into the enemy on the road like as not and have no shelter nor proper weapons to fight with.

The letter was still on the table and Meera could no longer resist the mystery of it. She took a deep breath as she unrolled and unfolded it.

_Meera,_

_I know you’ve no reason to forgive me for what I’ve become or for how I treated you those last few months but as this may be my last night of life I feel I should make some effort to communicate with you. I am sorry for what I have had to become. I never wanted to be the three eyed raven but it is a necessary position and there was no one else suited to the task. You were right when you said I died in that cave. I can hardly feel anything anymore, or at least I cannot allow myself such luxuries._

Meera nearly threw the letter in the fire, “I don’t need you to tell me things I already know,” she growled at the seal as if it were Bran and he could hear her. But she kept reading.

_But tonight while I wait for the enemy to come my thoughts keep turning to you. It is selfish of me to think this but I wish that you had never left. I wish that I could have known you in some different life, one in which I am whole and it is warm and green outside. If we’d met in that world I could have courted you even if you are older than me. I would have been a knight and I could crown you queen of love and beauty at tourneys; I wish I could see you with flowers in your hair. We’d have gone wherever we wanted and never have to be cold. We’d have a thousand adventures and inspire many a song. If you liked my courting, and in this dream you do, we’d go back to live at Winterfell and have as many children as you wanted. We’d never be hungry again and on cold nights we’d have each other for warmth._

_I suppose I should be ashamed for sharing such dreams with you. You are my elder and you hate me. But I am not sure I’ll survive the slaughter that is to come and only hope that you will escape. You should go south, as far south as south goes. Or perhaps you should find a boat and leave Westeros altogether. Whatever you do I pray you’ll survive. If I don’t survive this battle, and I am not sure that I will, then my last thoughts will be of you and how much I miss seeing your smile._

_Yours, Bran._

Meera’s hand trembled and she looked at the snow that fell heavy outside the walls of Greywater. Her body knew what to do more than her mind as she started to pack. Meera was no coward and she would not be told what to do by such a stupid, awful, sweet, love-struck boy.

She was not alone when she started the trek back to the north. Her people were not cowards either, whatever the Freys wanted to think, and it would be better to die fighting for their fellow men than to hide in their swamps or flee to the sunset sea.


End file.
